Page 25 of Head Over Heels

She shows me, item by item. The bedding came first, and she chose it because it was on sale at Target. Then she filled in at Goodwill. The photos are pages cut from a travel magazine and framed in the cheapest matching frames she could lay her hands on.

“If I had more time, or a bigger budget, I could have done something more creative than a beach cottage theme.”

“It seems pretty creative to me.”

“I mean, a beach cottage design is kind of a cliché at this point. But I also knew it would be relatively easy to do. And I’m not staying long, so I didn’t want to get too complicated.”

“Then—then why? Why do it at all?”

For a moment I think she’s not going to answer. Then she says, “It’s something I learned from a foster sister, in my—” She counts off on her fingers. “—fourth foster home. She called it carrying her shell on her back. They can keep moving you around, and there are so many things youcan’ttake with you, but youcanmake every place your own. It helps.”

I think that’s more than Liv has ever said before about growing up in foster care. She plays her cards close to her chest. As good friends as we are, there are a lot of things I don’t know about her.

“Are you still close to her?”

She shakes her head. “She didn’t want to stay in touch. She said it wasn’t a good idea. Better to make a clean break and move on.”

That’s pretty sad. And I wonder how much it’s shaped who Liv’s become.

I wonder if that’s what she’s thinking will happen between us. That when she goes to Denver, she’ll make a clean break and move on.

A few days ago, that thought would not have made me feel as sick to my stomach as it does right now.

“How old were you when you went into foster care?”

“My mom died when I was seven.”

My chest aches. “Not so different from Katie.”

She smiles, but there’s tightness in it.

“Is it hard for you, with Katie, because of that?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think of it that way. I think it helps me understand what Katie is going through. It helps me help her.”

I know that’s not the whole story. Under all that bravado there must still be a scared little girl. I feel a special kind of sympathy for the younger Liv. And alotof admiration for the woman she’s become.

“You were in foster homes until you went to college?”

“Uh-huh.”

I must make a face, because she says, “When people hear I lived in foster homes, their minds always go to the worst place. But for me, it wasn’t so bad. They were full of well-meaning adults who wanted to help. The only hard part was, I never got tostay.I’d start to feel like I’d settled in, and then something would happen. Another child would need the spot more than I did. A foster mom had a breakdown, a foster brother abused a sister, a foster dad got busted for possession. So that’s why I loved the idea so much of carrying my house around with me like a shell.”

I gesture to the room around us. “When you go to Denver, you’ll do this all over again?”

She nods. “And after that, wherever I go next.”

“Are you—looking forward to going to Denver?”

I’m not sure why I’m asking, or what I want her to say.

“I am. I get twitchy if I stay in a place too long. Claustrophobic.”

“I have that. I mean, not for living in a place too long, but…”

She tilts her head.

“As a kid, I wanted to be outside all the time. Fishing or hunting or camping with my uncle or if I couldn’t do that, tromping around the woods, hiking, foraging, snowshoeing, skiing—anything that would get me outside. Outside I was—I don’t know. Real. Alive. Inside, I was—like you’re saying. Trapped.”

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